Summer Will Show (28 page)

No. On second thoughts, that obligation was over. She could see no reason why she need ever deal with Frederick again. The necessary treaty for her jewels and valuables could be carried on by some third party. That would be the more dignified method. Most dignified of all would be to relinquish to him all that he thought so compelling: the pearl bracelets, the amethyst parure, the gold net reticule, the brooch. But the original Aspen in her would not give so far. Frederick had leeched quite enough during the years of their marriage, she would not trouble to climb to the apex of dignity in order to gratify him with a pair of pearl bracelets.

No burden more fidgeting than an impecunious husband. Her pride had always snarled at seeing him spend what was in truth her money, and her prudence had snarled to see him spending it so lavishly. He was as wasteful as a servant. She remembered the blank sniffing look on her father’s face, his voice saying coldly and hastily, “Certainly, Frederick, by all means”; as though he would deny like an ill odour the spectacle of an insolvent son-in-law; and with the same distaste and embarrassment he had whisked over the question of the marriage settlements, depositing me, she thought, with the same haughty embarrassment as he might drop a shilling into the hand of an importunate widow, come over from Ireland with her brats for the hay-making. Why ever had Papa countenanced the marriage? — what could have softened him towards that dowerless beauty, that lad with a long pedigree? Not her own vehemence, that sudden imperious curiosity to know what the love of man and woman might be, which at the first learning had shrivelled away and left her cold and unamorous. Mamma. Her breath had fanned the match, her steadfast gentle talk, like a woollen web, so meek, so muffling, had trawled them all towards that altar where Papa had given this woman to be married to this man. Clear out of the past leapt the recollection of those overheard words, “My dear, for Sophia an early match is the safest match”; and Papa’s face, his look of incredulity traversed with alarm. And so, for Sophia’s safety, he had given that woman to be married to that man, overlooking even the whiskers. For to Papa, socketed in a smooth-cheeked era, those whiskers had been perhaps what went down his gullet with the greatest difficulty.

Papa, Mamma ... She looked back at them now with the peculiar tenderness which ripens only on the farther side of an irreparable estrangement. There they were in her memory, far off, so far off that they were almost blue, walking beside the lake at Blandamer as the gentleman and the lady walked beside the lake on the blue transfer breakfast service. Henceforth she could think of them only with this particular secreted tenderness, seeing them away on their side of the water, they on their side, she on hers. Their departure into death seemed almost immaterial, so greatly was it transcended by her living departure. They at Blandamer, resuming their rightful ownership from their double-bedded grave, where Mama’s willow murmured and dripped; she here, lying on the floor of an apartment in the rue de la Carabine, her body fostering this enigmatical sleeper, her mind wandering excited and tentative through this newly begun riff-raff existence, as one wanders through a new house, where everything is still uncertain or unknown, where none of the furniture has been unpacked.

It was almost midday before she examined the trunk and the dressing-case. They had been most carefully dealt with, the dressing-case in particular. Even the gold tops had been removed from the flasks and pomade-pots, and corks of assorted sizes rammed down in their stead. Hidden under a silk band — pious observance of Papa’s axiom that one should always keep five pounds against emergency — had been a Bank of England note. This also had been removed. Frederick had been indeed a most thorough and conscientious steward of her goods.

But her anger was insubstantial, muted by the fatigue of the night, bleached by the reality of her relief at Minna’s re-emergence to life.

“One of my migraines,” she had said. Her voice was tinged with regretful pride, as though, mauled and bloodied, she had said, “One of my tigers.” And languid and compliant she had allowed herself to be put to bed, murmuring in her most plaintive stockdove note, “Ah, Sophia! How unfortunate that I broke your vinaigrette!”

No other allusion was made to the night before. It was a morning for practical dealings — Minna in bed, the apartment dishevelled with the party of overnight, her own crumpled estate to be remedied, and as usual, no food in the house.

She was in the porter’s lodge, a shopping list in hand, impelling Madame Coton to trudge on her errands, when she heard herself saluted, and turned to meet the man called Ingelbrecht.

“
Visite de digestion
,” he said, and bowed with formality.

This old man who had been driven from so many capital cities came welcome to her eyes, his cosmopolitan exile seemed to have given him something of the godlike quality of a head waiter.

“Minna is ill.”

“Ah! I am sorry. I will postpone the visit then, and do your shopping for you instead.”

Madame Coton protested that for nothing could she relinquish the privilege of shopping for Madame Lemuel, so endeared and so stricken. But defrauding her of the unconcluded tip he took the list from her hands and walked off.

There on the landing stood the trunk and the dressing-case, unpleasing reminders of obligations unfulfilled. Sooner or later the apology must be made to great-aunt Léocadie, sooner or later the affair of her valuables must be settled. Ingelbrecht, indeed, gave such promise of imperturbable reliability that he might well be the third party empowered to treat for them; but on the whole it would be simpler to ask him to take her place within earshot of Minna’s interminable drowsiness while she went to the Place Bellechasse, did the civil to Léocadie and at the same time removed her goods.

But seeing his unmoved agreement, she felt a compunction at so commandeering him.

“No,” said he. “I shall be quite happy here. I shall go on with my writing.” And from his pocket he drew a large notebook and a pencil.

“You are writing a book?”

“A treatise on the proper management of revolutions.”

As she went on her way the image remained with her of Ingelbrecht, his shawl wrapped about his knees, his wrinkled face intent and unmoved, writing smoothly in his child’s exercise book.

Thinking of Minna, of Ingelbrecht, and of herself, she had forgotten to expect the former things of the Place Bellechasse; but entering she saw with no surprise save that she should have forgotten that he would be there, Père Hyacinthe, visiting at his customary hour, his feet, prudently paired like begging friars, resting on the customary flourish of the Aubusson carpet. There, too, in its place, was the spinning-wheel, gently whirling, and there was Frederick, still handing great-aunt Léocadie another tod of wool. It was as though they had been sitting there like that ever since her departure, sitting up for her as people sit up for the event of a death-bed, having called in the consolation of the Church in case it might be necessary. There they had sat, through daylight and lamplight, whiling away the time with subdued conversation. One of them, however, had absented himself long enough from the vigil to pack her trunk and pillage her dressing-case.

No professional
croque-morts
could have received her more calmly, manipulated her more suavely. No word was said of her absence, such was their tact that only a nominal reference was made to her presence. Taking a little turn towards the weather the conversation picked her up, as it were, and brought her back, through rain in England, to the discussion of the status of Claremont among the English country houses.

“It has always been used for oddities,” said Frederick. “The Prince Consort lived there. The old one.”

“With his dowdy Louise’s predecessor. Poor creature! Of course one cannot always draw the winning number, but still it must be painful to sink from the only daughter of England to one of the corps-de-ballet of Orléans.”

“She is truly religious, I believe. One can but pity her.”

“Not his first experience among
les rats
,” said Frederick. “Do you remember the stories about that German barnstormer of his — Caroline something or other — and how she blackmailed him?”

“I suppose she needed the money,” remarked Frederick’s wife.

She had not been in the room for a couple of minutes before she became aware that her skirts were creased, her gloves dirty, her face flushed, and that she had a stain on her cuff. Even her voice, it seemed to her, had lost its gloss.

Frederick came forward with a footstool. Resting her feet on it she noticed that the tips of her shoes were rubbed.

As well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. She would be as vulgar as a washerwoman, she would take off her gloves. Off they came, and there were her hands, unmistakably the worse for wear, the hands that had that morning washed glass and china, burned themselves on the charcoal stove, swept up cigar ash and emptied slops. Such hands would signal the retire to any delicate intelligence. Quite shortly — she knew it — Frederick and Père Hyacinthe would again be aspiring towards the completion of Ste. Clotilde.

They were. The duet proceeded to its cadence. But this time it was the basso who bowed himself away, casting a sprig or two from his bouquet of blessings on those remaining. And this time it was the tenor who eulogised the nice feeling of the basso, remarking,

“Well, he has tact, has Père Hyacinthe. Knows when to take himself off.”

“More tact than you, perhaps, my good Frederick. Still, Frederick is right. Let us be open, and admit that we are glad to be alone, and able to express ourselves. My dearest Sophie, how consoling it is to see you again! I was becoming a little anxious, a little impatient. But seeing you returned, I forget all my reproaches.”

Though after the first sentence she had duly turned to Sophia, it was upon Frederick that her glance still rested.

“I quite agree, said Frederick. “Least said, soonest mended.”

“I was relieved, too,” said Sophia, “when Père Hyacinthe went. I have something to say to Frederick which I should prefer to say in private. But before anything else, great-aunt Léocadie, I must beg your pardon for my bad manners. I should not have flounced off as I did.”

“My child, say no more of that. At my age, when one has outlived for so long one’s own impetuosity, one is touched to see an act of impulse. It reassures one, it convinces one that there is still youth in the world that one is about to quit. Think no more of it, distress yourself no longer, my little Sophie.”

“I must ask pardon for more than that. Impetuosity cannot be the excuse for letting two days go by without writing to you.”

“No, my child. Frankly, that was badly done. But do not let us niggle over details. The essential thing is that you are here again; and if you have black lines under your eyes, no doubt they are little black marks placed there by your poor guardian angel. So the heavenly honour is satisfied, and we mortals will be satisfied too.”

How to fell this old indomitable, wiry-legged, wiry-hearted ballerina? I cannot, thought Sophia. There is Frederick to settle with, on the way back I want to buy more smelling-salts and some oysters, I cannot leave Ingelbrecht waiting indefinitely. Smashing down on these considerations came,
Suppose Minna is really ill?
Abstractedly she leaned down her cheek to the old woman’s kiss.

When Frederick had ushered her into the dining-room and closed the door behind them her consciousness, bent on what was to come next, became slowly and embarrassingly aware that what was to come next threatened to be something compromising and bawdy. Looking round with an enquiring frown she saw the whiskered cheek a few inches from her eye, and understood that Frederick also was about to impose a kiss of pardon and peace.

She gave an alert cough, and spoke.

“Frederick! I should like my jewellery. I will take it with me now. And I will take the remaining fittings of my dressing-case too. I find the corks which you supplied very inconvenient.”

“And where do you propose to take them, Sophia?”

“To Madame Lemuel’s.”

“Ah!” said Frederick, and seated himself. Thoughtfully he took out his cigar-case and pondered it — then, with a glance round, appeared to bethink himself of Madame de Saint Gonval’s dining-room, and put it back again.

If there had been time she would have opposed her silence to his, frozen him, as she had done so often before, out of his impudence. But Ingelbrecht could not be left to finish out his exercise book, Minna might be worse. She must despatch.

“If you are thinking out a speech, Frederick, you can spare yourself the trouble. I had your letter. You made yourself sufficiently clear in that.”

“Did I, though?”

“Perfectly, I should say.”

“Then what the devil are you here for?”

He is going to fight over this trumpery, she thought. What a fool I was to come for it.

“
Visite de digestion
,” she said.

He opened his mouth like an angry fish. How often in times past his gapings at Blandamer had revealed to her those large regular tedious teeth, that healthy pink maw!

“Let us consider it paid, shall we? I will get my things from Madeleine on my way out. You need not trouble to come with me.”

“Still after your gimcracks, eh? Let the bride forget her ornaments ... .Well, Madeleine hasn’t got them.
I’ve got them!”

Those three words were spoken in a voice so gross, so heavy with plebeian malice, that she turned on him in astonishment. She could not recover her senses as promptly as he recovered his usual manner; and he had been speaking for some time before she brought herself to attend to what he was saying.

“And you must not run away with the idea that I am doing this without consideration, out of spite or anything of that sort. I have discussed it thoroughly with your great-aunt Léocadie, and she quite agrees with me. You will admit
her
knowledge of the world at any rate, whatever your low opinion of mine. I only wish that she was doing the talking, it would come much better from her. This is an awkward sort of thing to discuss with one’s wife.”